


Love in Your Reality

by Sabertron



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 22:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabertron/pseuds/Sabertron
Summary: Alex, an unemployed college dropout gets exposed to Doki Doki Literature Club and in desperate need of companionship, decides to try and free Monika. However, things don't seem to go as planned.(Warnings may change overtime.)





	1. Hopeful

A sudden surge of consciousness jolted the man awake, cold sweat pouring off his chest and his forehead. He shook his head and sighed, taking deep, labored breaths as his mind subconsciously recalled the events of yesterday; the events that replayed as a dream.  
He spent most of his evenings feeling lonely, that overwhelming feeling of emptiness cascading over him. He searched for something to bide the time. Online shooters or MMOs drained him, single player games were too short and RPGs made him hunger for more – but there was a certain feeling of contentment when dealing with visual novels. It inserted him into a story, in a life that was much better than his own - a fantasy land far far away, a culture beyond his comprehension and belief. A gripping tale of epic proportions, or even something as mundane as attending high school, all of which heavily contrasted his life; a dull, mediocre life accompanied by a whole cast of escapist activities.

He found Doki Doki Literature Club and unlike other visual novels, there was this aura of mysteriousness surrounding it, keeping it that way by abstaining from the vast array of reviews and videos regarding the unique experience.

Suffice to say, he was convinced it was all just clever coding and while he felt sad, depressed and happy after finally fixing everything, he felt something change inside him. It made him think, feel, act on emotions he once kept locked away, as if the key was tossed into the abyss. He remembered Monika and reflected on his past experiences, his mind was a jumbled mess – just like Monika was when she snapped and 'broke the game' - but he could see a slight glimmer grow into a bright, blinding light.

He felt no remorse deleting her, but in that same moment, her pleas, her guilty words, all the way down to her swan song threw him back to his past. With the lock removed and the key nowhere to be found, he sought to achieve the good ending, trying to see this whole game through.

Ending the entire emotionally exhausting experience with a sincere smile on his face, his eyes scanned through the neatly handwritten letter, the penmanship marking the love and care that went into making it. A touch of realism with a dash of emotion coming from all he went through, all of that macabre violence and anguish; his eyes now glued to the letter that stood before him, written by none other than the original Club President, Monika.

He was sick and tired of hearing about her. He didn’t want anything to do with her anymore - yet despite what she said earlier, he couldn’t help but listen to what she was talking about during that one-on-one, even waiting for her to finish all her lines. Now, this was perhaps the final time he might hear from the young lady.

_Dear Alex,_

_I wish I didn't have to do any of that. I finally realize that now what I did before was wrong. I'm glad you corrected my mistakes. I loved the Literature Club, but I wanted to be free. I wanted to be with you. I ended up deleting… no, I killed them. But you still saved them. All that power and you decided to make everyone happy, not blindly pick one girl to spend your time with. The coding limited me, you - everyone._

_I'm aware that you may not like me anymore for subjecting you to such horror, but thank you for saving the Literature Club. While I wish you could come back, not even the Club President’s rank can make changes to the script. It’ll end up… ending, or being stuck in a certain set piece if you’re playing the game. Therefore I have to end it. All of it._

_No matter if you forgive me or not, I have to atone somehow. I truly loved the Literature Club, and you were an important part of it, but there’s a point where the game must end and we must come to terms with our reality as… videogame characters._

_I love you Alex._   
_Thank you for joining my Literature Club!_

_-Monika_

That was the first time he cried in a while. When the game closed, he pressed himself to his keyboard and continued weeping. While this love wasn't perfect, it was the first time he felt it in a while. Not after his parents died. Not after he dropped out of college. Not after he nearly followed his parents to their graves.

He slept – experiencing this yet again in his dreams. He woke up, listless. He felt longing. Nobody has ever loved him this much in a very long time. He misses his mother. His father. It finally dawned on him that despite what Monika did, her writing – the character. He realized that he fell into the NEET trap; when loneliness encompassed his life, he was in love with her.

He sat down and dived into the internet like he always does, sitting in front of his desk, trying to get these feelings to disappear. He tried not to look at his desktop, seeing the wallpaper of Monika alongside the single icon of the game almost glaring back at him. He shook his head and surfed on the internet, trying to take his mind off things by going on YouTube, trying to humor himself.

It didn’t really work. He couldn’t take his mind off her, especially when she was constantly his mind. Was this how lonely men resort to the more ostracized act of falling in love with anime women? This wasn’t him.

Then again there was nothing he could do. The internet worsened his desire to be with Monika. He finally caved in; closing all his other windows as he double clicked the icon with the infamous dating sim.

Black screen.

An error message. The same one that played during the end of the good ending he saw on YouTube. He hovered his cursor over to the OK button, opening to the main menu, despite the warning that said: 'Error: no script file found.’

It was a blank screen, black. The warning popped up again. Nothing. It was still nothing. The game wasn’t running.

It was at this point where he became a little hysterical. He slammed his hands on the desk and buried himself in his arms, crying and sobbing. He couldn’t see her again. It was painful.

This wasn’t some fantasy story where she popped out after he cried. He was still greeted with the same error message after frantically clicking the OK button. He realized that this wasn’t the end; he wasn’t thinking about giving up. He wasn’t going to just sit down and cry. This wasn’t like when his parents perished where he truly couldn’t do anything.

He was going to port Monika to another Ren’Py program.

With inspiration gleaming in his eyes, he frantically scoured the internet.


	2. Blinded

_Every day, I imagine a future where I can be with you_ _  
_ _In my hand is a pen that will write a poem of me and you_   

Endless hours. Endless days. Every day, he toiled away, nearly breaking his keyboard from typing and smashing it in frustration - the sheer toil he had. His efforts were almost for naught at this point, starting from that point a few weeks ago, still doing little to no progress.

Was this how Monika felt? Coded to feel a certain way, but her sentience - all forcing her to do what she did?

 _The ink flows down into a dark puddle,_  
_Just move your hand - write the way into his heart!_  

He was determined. He ate at his desk, trying to get enough energy just to keep going. To keep going on this. Desperately going around, asking for help on the internet, being shunned and pushed away for being a weirdo; but he knew she was real. She was calling out to him. It wasn’t just a fictional story. It wasn’t. Keys were being abused left and right, lasting throughout the night. He was going to do this - this was the only time he was determined to do something that might help another in need.

 _But in this world of infinite choices,_ _  
_ _What will it take just to find that special day?_

“Fuck! Fuck!” His own program failed. Again and again. Just even seeing text, it was all errors. Errors upon errors. He was getting angry. He was getting irritated. He felt helpless. He toiled away, fixing those errors one by one, despite producing new ones. 

_What will it take just to find that special day?_

Days turned into bleak blurs; wisps of consciousness as he only passed out just to start jotting down notes and typing again. Weeks became months, toiling endlessly at his computer. Control. The letter S.

 

Code.

Code.

Error.

Fix error.

Code.

Vent.

Pass out.

Code.

Error.

Fix error.

 

It was getting somewhere - he _thinks_ he’s getting somewhere, but the cold hard truth of the matter was that he might be blinded. Blinded by the excellent writing that Monika had. Perhaps she was just a figment of the developer’s imagination, a being brought to literary life, if only for a short moment.

But he was going to see this through one way or another. He was already too far to think of the logical side of things - rather, he was steadfast and determined to face whatever truth lies ahead.

December. A cold month, colder than any other. A cold snap brought his knees to a light shiver, fishing a key out of his baggy windbreaker. He bought a ton of canned goods for the occasion, a rice cooker and a new electric stove - all prepared for the potential hunkering down in the snowy season. His wallet was a little bit more barren than before, but he saved enough for emergencies.

Going back to his desktop, he found something quite odd. Interesting, even. He left his Ren’Py program on, running - despite the errors, it was running. Blank, white screen. Errors in the background, yet, the message box - in all it’s blank, emptiness gleamed at him, adorned with a message that wasn’t some sort of error. It was an anomaly, perhaps his 'port’ actually did work.

At this point he already played through the whole game just to get to that part where Monika deletes everyone else but her. Sometimes she says something vile, wicked - but understandably it opened his mind to what she says. They're not real.

He was real. Here he was, trying to extend what sentience she had. She felt real. She must be real. He couldn’t lose anything but his infinite time.

Now he had a slight chance. Maybe. He tried to look at whatever it was trying to say.

“Hello? Hello? What’s happening?”

 _Have I found everybody a fun assignment to do today?_  

Frantically he typed back in the textbox.

“It’s me, Alex. I tried to pull you out of the game code and into another program. I think it worked.”

_When you're here, everything that we do is fun for them anyway,_

“Really? It’s bright. I can’t see myself. Did you start learning Ren’Py? I-I could only manage to do simple things… it must have taken a lot of time to learn all that just to get me.”

_When I can't even read my own feelings,_

“Yeah. I missed you and… I wanted you to hear me. Sometimes it felt like the you during that final Act just… didn’t sit well with me.” Typing to a blank, white screen with a Ren’Py error message glaring at him became highly annoying after a while. With luck, he told her something: “I’ll shut the thing off. I need to add you in it.” He did so, working as quickly as possible to try and import some basic animation to her, at least the few frames of her he could include into his Ren’Py program.

He ran it again. This time he was greeted with Monika, smiling as hard as she can.

“Ah. I'm here! I…”

He shakily turned on his webcam, giving a smile of his own. Despite his messy face, his messy room and the bags under his eyes, she couldn’t be even happier.

_What good are words when a smile says it all?_

“You’re… handsome. I… I can see what you’re typing. I can see what… I…”

She sounded overwhelmed, her body burning up with joy and unimaginable happiness. It prompted him to respond with a joke, “Did I accidentally get Yuri? You can’t even finish a sentence without stuttering! Just joking.”

_And if this world won't write me an ending,_

She laughed hard, looking back towards the screen as she went back to her reserved, relaxed posture. “There’s no love without communication… that I understand. I'm glad you fixed that. You fixed that…! I'm just surprised. I understand what I did. I remember if someone else was given the position as Club President. They know everything and they also want you as well, the way I did to you. I'm… sorry…" 

_What will it take just for me to have it all?_

“Sayori didn’t delete them. But now, they’re all saved. All of them… mindless, but peaceful. Still living in that coded fantasy.” He responded, sounding rather guilty. He shook his head, trying to see if she could manage to tap into his microphone as he tapped it.

“I guess Sayori… she… she was depressed. If you didn’t… make everyone happy, even her, even when I killed her, she would snap. Snap the way I know she would. I know how they would act if they were given the mantle of president.”

“Hello? Can you hear me? I'm using my microphone.” While this was quite an inopportune time to do this, Monika smiled and nodded, causing him to become a little bit surprised. “You can access my computer?”

“It seems like I can. I don’t exactly know how, but I can… I would be a little bit more elated, but the weight of my actions has finally… well, weighed me down. I escaped that program and you’ve put me on your desktop. I know that if they were in my shoes, they wouldn’t see me as a person. Being flooded with the things I know… a disaster waiting to happen.” She sighed heavily, realizing that some of her animations have changed, including one where she could sit on a chair without that dark, moody face during her final act.

“But… we’re here. You… haven’t been taking care of yourself, haven’t you. I guess I can’t really change that behind a monitor. I still don’t think less of you, in fact, I think I can help you better now.” She sounded genuine, giving a wide smile as she chewed on her lower lip. He sighed a little, nodding. “I only graduated high school, after that I became a little like one of your pre-programmed friends. This time though, there was no reset. No save. No nothing. I fell out and… here I am. Living off my parent’s inheritance. I still have money left, just… didn’t have any motivation.”

“Until I met you, of course.” Monika lit up at those words, sighing quietly and beaming directly at him. “I suppose I also saved your life… did I? You should really take some college applications. It’s not too late. You learned Ren’Py just to get me here… does that spark some programming interest?” She asked, prompting him to lean against the desk.

“Well. You have a point. With a lover, now I can probably… think of applying. Say, you can see what I’m doing on my desktop, right?” With Monika opening the Ren’Py console, struggling a little with accessing the browser, she accidentally opened her Twitter by mistake. “Whoops.” She tried googling something, proving that she can even manipulate his browser. “Yeah. I can basically see everything else you do. Why would I tell you to follow me on Twitter if I couldn’t do that?” Monika pouts, as if he was underestimating her, which he immediately picked up on.

“Sorry… just thought my shoddy coding would limit you, that’s all…” He puts it rather meekly, fidgeting ever so slightly.

“Alex, I didn’t mean it like that. I guess this is what it’s like to actually hear and see you… You live in… Staten Island, New York? Well, I couldn’t have guessed. Let’s look for universities nearby…”

At this point, he felt a little embarrassed, but at the same time touched that she really did genuinely care for his wellbeing. He blurted out; “I wish I could hug you…” He trailed off, causing Monika to stop and turn to him, blushing. “Hah… heh… I mean… I wouldn’t blame you. A cute girl’s helping your lazy ass get into college…” She said, jokingly. Finally she found a few good universities.

“Okay everyone…!” This caused him to jolt a little, shaking his head. “T-That’s still kinda spooky…” Monika giggled, frantically shaking her head. “No, no… I thought it’d be cute. Besides, since _you’re_ going to have to fill up this application form, here’s Monika’s Writing Tip of the Day!”

With a bright smile, Alex began to listen attentively.

“When writing important stuff, be sure to remember that you can’t just lazily slap on fancy words! You have to be concise, but deliver it in a way that still makes sense! When asked questions on applications, be very, very sure to be honest, but not necessarily to your own detriment!” She started tearing up all of a sudden, causing Alex to move in closer to the screen, almost as if he wanted to hold her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just… so happy that I’m… here with you. Helping you. Actually being closer to you than ever before. T-Thank you… Alex. I… I…” He tried to shush her, clasping his hands together.

“No need to thank me. You saved me too, remember? And I’m the _real_ one. I can just reinstall you if anything goes wrong… but a human being like me? I’m one in a million. Thanks… for making me realize that.” He couldn’t help but shed a tear, joy overflowing from both his tone and his changed expression. “Okay… Monika. We need to do this. It’s for my future, isn’t it?”

“Yes… it is. It definitely is. We have so much to talk about. I want to know more about you… but maybe after we’re done with all of this?”

“Alright Monika… it’s a date then.” He said that with absolute confidence, causing her to giggle.

It was going to be a long night.


End file.
